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No, I'm serious. Having been sent the game a few weeks back, I finally got round to sitting down with my wife and a friend and playing through Rare's latest Xbox 360 title this afternoon. Yes, I know it's had pretty good reviews, but buzz for the game in terms of online discussion has been curiously lacking - no messageboard hype that I've seen, and it apparently sold less than 40,000 copies in the States last month, following its launch on November 11th.

If you consider that Gears Of War did over a million units in less time than that, and even titles such as F.E.A.R. shifted over 100,000 copies for the month, that's pretty disappointing. And that's very wrong, because it's one of the best games for the Xbox 360 so far, and might even be a bit of a sleeper hit if Microsoft is lucky - I've seen a few smart bloggers who _have_ picked it up saying good things about it.

Of course, the demographics of Xbox 360's early adopters are likely very wrong for the kind of game that Pinata is (it's a Microsoft-funded attempt to open the console up to a wider audience as much as anything). But here, I meekly submit, are three other reasons that the game isn't making an impact with the public - bearing in mind that I've only just started playing Viva Pinata, and am still shaking off my preconceptions:

- Sorry, Rare, but your reputation among a lot of the hardcore gamers who currently own an Xbox 360 just isn't that good. Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo were both flawed attempts at X360 launch titles that probably got overrated by the press along the way, further disenchanting people who picked them up at hardware launch. And the Conker update felt pretty underwhelming - so I think that a family-oriented game done by the current Rare team just didn't appeal to a lot of people.

- As a 'playing in a sandbox'-style game, the hook for the game - which is that you build your garden in specific ways to attract pinata, is awfully difficult to communicate. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no main character in the game, unlike titles like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing. So the screenshots and videos of the title can't show you, because 'you' are effectively God. Nothing wrong with that, but it probably turns the game into an 'only understand it when you play it' title, which is a pretty terrible hook.

- There's a cartoon series based on Viva Pinata, of course, and it's obvious that a Pokemon-style crossover was intended here, with kids being lobbied in the TV show to attract specific pinata. Regardless of how seditious this is in terms of influencing the kiddies, there's a major difference between Pokemon and Viva Pinata. In Pokemon, after you catch the creature, you can use it to fight others - it's very direct. In Pinata, after a creature wanders onto your patch of land - attracted by your landscaping, I hasten to add - you can interact with them in a limited way, but they have a mind of their own. Do kids intrinsically get excited by this concept vs. catching things and making them fight? I'm guessing not.

So, it's odd - by being original, I feel like Rare has made Viva Pinata even less sale-able that an average family platformer would be on the Xbox 360. Which is tragic, because it's a much, much more interesting game - not the character-based Banjo Kazooie/Conker clone which I think a lot of people just presume that it is. 1UP's John Davison has a fairly impassioned review in which he argues as much, but I'm not sure how many people are listening. Are you?

[EDIT, 12/25/06 8.50am PST: A couple of people have pointed out that I probably mean 'overlooked' rather than 'underrated', because the game got some pretty good reviews - and I can see the possible confusion, so I tweaked the title, thanks.

Also, a commenter asked why you might want to get the game, given that this piece mainly deals with why other people didn't buy it. I replied: "I think it _is_ worth picking up if you like the idea of making your own garden and tailoring it to attract certain type of wee wild beasties - with cute graphics and some fun collectability elements. But if that's not your cup of tea, then fair enough!"

Finally, a friend pointed out that 1UP's 'Naughty Or Nice' holiday feature actually apologizes to Rare over its preview coverage, saying: "Sometimes the joke is on us. We're just sending you folks an apology card; we were totally wrong about Viva Piñata all of those times we said it sucked."]

41 Comments

That is disappointing to hear it has only sold 40,000 copies. I really enjoyed this game, and from much of the gamer press I have read everyone who has played, albeit reluctantly, has enjoyed it as well. I say reluctantly because the hardcore audience the XBOX 360 has, hates to admit to playing Viva Pinata more than Gears of War. The only problem I had was trying to exactly figure out how to progress in the game. I had to go online to find out that only by achieving level 21 do you get your maximum land area. A great game, and hopefully the game of the year awards it garners will help it sell more.

Not including a central playable character with typical cute-hermaphrodite-pedophile-japanese design traits is a fatal mistake. I find it quite puzzling that people who are abviously so talented to create such a masterfully excuted game, failed to realise that.

Brandon - I think it _is_ worth picking up if you like the idea of making your own garden and tailoring it to attract certain type of wee wild beasties - with cute graphics and some fun collectability elements.

I think the problem is is that there aren't enough "little kids" who own XBOX 360s. Eight zillion bucks is too expensive for most parents of little kids. I hope more folks buy it when they hear it isn't just for little kids.

People would be more interested if you changed some of the words. For example, instead of saying, "garden" say "city" and instead of saying "pinatas" say "aliens." I think people are just too scared to play a game based on "gardening." Its a great game. I've got it, I've played it extensively. If you have a doubt, go rent this game. I assure you, if you enjoy ANY SimCity/Sims/SimTower/Roller Coaster Tycoon type games, you'll like this game.

The 1up podcast talked about this game for almost half an hour for almost every podcast in November. It was really fun to hear one guy mention it briefly in one podcast, then in the next say he really loves it, than the next hear two or three guys talking about squizzles, and by the fourth and fifth, Gears of War was long forgotten.

The thing about VP is it may be the first real 360 game to make an honest effort at breaking down boundaries. Everyone in my family plays it, and even non gamers who were over for the holidays and recent birthday celebrations were drawn in by its charm.

It's been poorly marketed, much like the same fate that happened to Ico. I hope that they branch out the marketing beyond children... It's been a problem in game marketing for some years... If it isn't an FPS, action/adventure, or a sports game, then nobody knows what to do with it. Sad, it's a brilliant game and has much more depth than the typical kid would ever get.

It's ironic that gamers cry out for 'original games', not the cookie-cutter monotony of the next EA Sports title or Call of Duty-esque WW2 shooter.

Yet, when a company risks it and develops an extremely good, solid title, noone buys it.

For all the shit EA gets about ruining the game industry, I think the EA-hate is misguided. Gamers simply don't want to go outside of their comfort zones.

Microsoft will of lost a lot of money on this title -- millions of dollars. I'm not so sure they'll risk titles like this again when Gears of War sells like mad (not that GoW is a bad game, it's just not very original).

The other reason people stayed away: Microtransactions. There was all sorts of talk about how this game would be loaded with microtransactions (new pinatas, new accessories, etc.). The combination of cartoon plus microtransactions made it sound a LOT like a CCG-style videogame, where it'd attempt to drain your wallet by having your kids nag at you.

This turns out not to be the case at all, and it needs microtransaction content like Oblivion does -- which is to say, not at all, because there's so much content already in the game.

The game isn't my cup of tea (I hate the Sims, RTS games, and pretty much anything else that's at all like this), but my RTS-loving wife has played about 15 hours in the last two days, and even my Nazi-killing-loving son is occasionally putting away COD3 for this.

Aside from all the other issues posted above, with which I totally agree, IMO the biggest thing holding this game back is that the related cartoon is really, really awful, and nobody wants to play a really, really awful videogame based on a really, really awful cartoon. All of Microsoft's marketing for the game through Live has been by using the cartoon to try to sell the game. Of course the truth is that the videogame bears little relation to the cartoon, but the damage is done.

The other big problem is that when someone asks me what the game is about, I have to launch into a detailed explanation instead of "it's a FPS" or "it's a RPG" and usually by about the time of "... and each kind of pinata has different requirements for it to take up residence..." their eyes have glazed over and they just aren't interested any more.

It's great that it's not a genre game, because I can do without Yet Another (WWII Squad-based Strategy, SciFi FPS, Fantasy MMORPG, Sports Game 200x+1, etc.) but the downside is that there's no genre to point at when someone wants to know what kind of game it is.

Personally I love it. I bought it when it came out and I've enjoyed the heck out of it and so has everyone else I've shown it to.

I'm loving VP. I've been playing it since it was released and I know a few others that are still geeking out over how awesome this game really is. The subject matter may be a little childish, but man is it fun.

I also want to say that neither me nor my boyfriend had much interest in the game but I bought it for him for Christmas and he stopped playing all his other games to play it. I don't like sim games, really, but I actually enjoy it,too. It's just a really good game.
I hope it sells well.

This article encapsulates the feeling on the simExchange. Viva Pinata stock was flying high until the November sales numbers came out. Everyone was thinking this would be a sleeper hit. The forecasts had hit as high as 1.0 million copies sold worldwide over lifetime but then plummeted to under 500,000.